Cuba's gay pride parade: big debut, few marchers

"We are not asking for anything, we're only celebrating the fact that Cuba voted at the United Nations in favor of recognizing the rights of the gay community," said Ignacio Estrada, one of the leaders of the Cuban Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered People's Rights Watch Group.

The short march -- along the 500 meters (1,600 feet) of Prado Avenue towards the seaside boulevard, the Malecon -- took place without incident and broke up amid music and dancing under the amused eye of passers-by and tourists.

Cuba's Center for Sexual Education, directed by Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raul Castro, celebrates a "day against homophobia" every year, but this was the first time a Gay Pride march was held in downtown Havana.

It is not an insignificant whiff of tolerance in a country in which the Communist Party singlehandedly controls the government, the media and almost all of the cash-strapped economy.

For decades under the Americas' only one-party communist government, gays faced both traditional social and government ostracism, and often tried to hide. Some wound up in prison, and many went into exile.